Five days of the NextGen Philanthropy Scholarship Leadership Program flew by in a flash.
Mornings were filled with lectures and leadership workshops, afternoons took the kids to experience local culture from a Sikh temple to an art museum, and 3 evenings were spent on Zoom working intensively on their group philanthropy projects.
By the second evening, Group 4 brainstormed their project topic, pitching ideas that ranged from climate change and food waste to the strain AI puts on power grids. After a lively debate, food waste ultimately won the group’s vote.
On the third evening, however, they hit a wall trying to tackle such a broad issue. Their mentor, Jia Le, stepped in and hinted they look at everyday food waste at home. This inspired them to think about household refrigerators, where families buy duplicates and toss older food simply because they forgot what was already inside. From there, the team designed an AI app concept that scans items before purchase and warns users if they already have them at home.
On the fourth evening, they focused entirely on preparing for their final presentation. After dividing up the tasks, everyone dove straight into their own work. Time was so tight that they didn’t even have time for a full rehearsal.
During the final presentation the next day, my heart was in my throat as they stepped up to the stage. Yet what unfolded caught me completely off guard: every transition was smooth, every teammate backed the other up, and every speaker delivered the team’s ideas with crystal-clear confidence, as if they’d had weeks to practice instead of one rushed evening.
Looking back, what I appreciated most as a parent was how deliberately the program was designed: it fed the kids’ curiosity and sense of purpose, and helped them bond through daily lectures and cultural outings, yet knew exactly when to step back and leave the thinking and deciding entirely in their own hands.
Honestly, I’d hoped Scarlett would come back a little more independent, but I didn’t expect her to come back genuinely proud of solving a real-world problem with peers she’d known for less than a week.
Over those five days, I watched my daughter transform. She became more confident, more aware of the world, and truly invested in making a difference. She learned to manage time under pressure, to lead as easily as she followed, and to trust a team with diverse backgrounds. More importantly, she realized that youth is no barrier to impact: even in a few short days, a handful of young minds could spark real solutions to real-world problems.
I would recommend NextGen without hesitation to any parent who wants their child to walk away with more than just a certificate. That’s a lesson no certificate could ever capture.
—Ms. Huan Luo，Mother of Scarlett（NextGen class of 2026）
